To support the demand of Kurdish politician Leyla Güven against the aggravated isolation of the Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, 110 activists in the northern Syrian canton Qamishlo have started a hunger strike.

The action in Amûdê began on Monday on the initiative of the Kurdish women's movement Kongreya Star and the City Council and is expected to continue until Wednesday.

Kongreya Star’s Munevver Xalid said that actions against the isolation imposed on PKK leader Ocalan on the Turkish prison island of Imrali for the past 20 years will continue even after the end of the hunger strike. "We are in solidarity with Leyla Güven and all other hunger strikers and will continue to express this in action," Xalid announced.

The goal of the hunger strike campaign

Abdullah Öcalan has been in solitary confinement on the Turkish prison island of Imrali for twenty years. His lawyers have no access to him since 2011. Since the termination of the PKK's peace negotiations with the Turkish government in 2015, Ocalan has been isolated from the public. His brother Mehmet Öcalan was able to visit him for the first time in January after two and a half years on the prison island of Imrali. The goal of the Kurdish hunger strike, which has spread to Europe and the world, is to ensure regular contacts with Öcalan, who is considered a key figure in a solution to the Kurdish question. Hundreds of people are taking part in the protest initiated by HDP MP and DTK Co-chair Leyla Güven. Around 300 political prisoners from PKK and PAJK trials are participating in the hunger strike campaign in Turkish prisons alone.